Donetsk Ukraine Travel Guide

Donetsk
is a city in eastern Ukraine on the Kalmius River. Administratively, it
is a center of Donetsk Oblast, while historically it is the unofficial
capital and largest city of the Donets Basin region, or Donbass. The
city's name is often simplified to Donetsk.

Donetsk has 1,131,700 inhabitants; the metropolitan area has
1,566,000 inhabitants. It is the fourth-largest city in Ukraine.
Donetsk and the surrounding territories are heavily urbanized and
agglomerated into conurbation. The workforce is heavily involved with
heavy industry, especially coal mining, but the city is very green and
lightly-polluted for being a major industrial city. Donetsk has one of
the highest standards of living in the region.

While the majority of people in central and western Ukraine speak
Ukrainian, most residents of Donbas are Russian-speaking Ukrainians and
native Russians. The Russian language is dominant in Donbas. Ukrainians
are 56.9% of Donetsk region and Russians are 38.2%.

Donetsk was founded in 1869 when the Welsh businessperson built
a metallurgical plant and several coal mines near a Cossack settlement
Alexandrovka. The town initially was given the name Yuzovka. By the
beginning of the 20th century Yuzovka had approximately 50,000
inhabitants, and attained the status of a city in 1917. In 1924 the
city's name was changed to Stalino after Joseph Stalin. The Nazi
invasion during World War II almost completely destroyed the city,
which was mostly rebuilt on a large scale at the war's end. During
Nikita Khrushchev's second wave of desalinization immediately after the
22nd Communist Party Congress in November 1961, all Soviet cities named
after Stalin were renamed. Stalino's name was changed to Donetsk, after
the Donets River, a tributary of the Don.